How To Meet Angel Investors (Part 2)

Note: this post was transcribed from this video.

Hey guys, in this article I’m going to go over four more ways that you can meet angel investors. Let’s go!:

So in the previous article (How To Meet Angel Investors Part 1) we’ve already gone over our Personal Network, Local Angel Groups and Angel List.

So the next way to meet angel investors is through Service Providers.

This is kind of a tricky and interesting one, but the people that provide services to your company,most likely know either angel investors in your area or they know people who know angel investors.

When I say service providers I mean people like your lawyer, your accountant, your fractional CFO, etc. It could also be the leaders of development shops, or really any company that also works with startups.

These people are in the startup community and as a result they are likely connected to investors. So the best way to activate this channel is to just talk to your service providers. Connect with your lawyer or even network with other lawyers, who you might use in the future and see if they can make some intros.

As a startup CEO, service providers like lawyers, accountants and fractional CFOs are the type of people who want your business. To get your business they want to provide value to you so they’re likely to make introductions if you if they believe in you and your company. So number four is service providers.

Number five: Other Locally Funded CEOs.

As a founder and CEO, network with other local founders and CEOs. Try to find out who’s invested in all the companies in your area and use the CEO’s as your source of a warm intro.

However, the CEO’s who are going to introduce you have to be sold on your idea. They have to be excited about what you are doing, because they want to provide value to their investors, and an intro to a founder of a company they believe will succeed (and make the investor lots of money) provides value. So that’s the number one thing to remember when approaching (and selling) other CEOs.

Secondly, it has to be a match. The investor has to be a match for your company. Don’t ask for intros where there isn’t a clear match.

So if both those things are true, the CEO will naturally want to make the introduction because it will provide social capital for them to provide a valuable opportunity to their investors.

So that’s number five, locally funded CEOs who have taken in investment capital.

Number Six: Your Customers

Through doing interviews with your customers, depending on what industry you’re in, you might get some very high quality warm introductions to investors.

You might find angel investors who are already your customers, or customers who know investors and are excited to introduce you.

So look through your customers. You can use tools like Linkedin, or Rapportive, or RocketReach to find out more about your customers. You can check into their lives and find out who they are. And you might be able to get in front of them easily.

After all, if they’re your customer, it’s likely you can reach out to them and give them the pitch. Try ask them if they know anybody who might be interested in the opportunity that you’re offering. (Check my last video to get a fine point on exactly what I’m referring to when I say opportunity).

Your customers can be a great source of introductions to angel investors or they could be angel investors themselves. They already have a relationship with your company, with your product, they probably already love you. If they’re your customer, the warmth of any intros they make will be intense. It will be like a hot intro. So, customers. Use your customers to meet angel investors!

Number 7 – Crowdfunding

Sites like SeedInvest or CircleUp are great places to meet angel investors. What they do is vet startups and for the ones that pass, they put them in front of big groups of angel investors.

So going through a process with SeedInvest or CircleUp or some of the other platforms that are out there is a great way to meet angel investors. It can result in direct investment into your company like it did at Kindara.

And lastly, a bonus one is an obvious one:

Number 8 – Accelerators.

Some examples are Techstars, YCombinator, Boom, HAX, etc. There’s so many accelerators now all over the country, and all over the world.

In fact, there’s likely an accelerator that wants you and your business, or will at least interview you and introduce you to people.

Accelerators are a great place to meet investors because you’re vetted to get into the accelerator and usually there’s a demo day where investors are invited. That’s how we met a lot of our angel investors at Kindara: Through doing The Founder Institute accelerator and also the HAX accelerator.

If you implement all these strategies, you will find that meeting angel investors for your business gets a heck of a lot easier.

If you have any questions or comments or anything you want me to tackle in a future article, let me know.

(And if you want to go deeper and learn every step of the fundraising process from A to Z and quickly and efficiently raise money for your social impact startup, check out our GetFunded program.)